Flat panel displays, and particularly LCD panels, have generally been fabricated in the past such that there is a 1:1 correspondence between the display surface geometry and the image pixel geometry. This leads to very high data rates for LCD panels that have many pixels and display a wide number of grey scale levels. With these display systems, any improvements in imaging or in panel production capability require a redesign of the entire display system.
Conversely, cathode ray tube (CRT) displays have used a well-defined series of interface standards, such as the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) RS-170 and RS-343 standards, to support displays of varying sizes and with varying performance tradeoffs. Previously disclosed flat panel LCD interfaces have required high speed video data processing in order to scan the image onto LCD panels of varying sizes and pixel counts. Such interfaces also require scanning video information onto an LCD flat panel using a non-interlaced standard with a refresh rate that is high enough to be above the flicker fusion frequency of the human eye.
Therefore, there is a need for a video interface to convert an incoming interlaced video signal to an outgoing non-interlaced video signal for an LCD flat panel with an arbitrary number of rows and columns.